Don’t you just hate it when you purchase a Sherman tank and the dang thing never arrives?

That’s what happened to the scion of a prominent Florida developer, whose father owns a gated vacation resort near where he planned to drive around for fun in the 38-ton armored war machine he purchased at a Portola Valley auction.

Damon Becnel, 43, filed suit last week in San Mateo County Superior Court, claiming breach of contract by the seller, auctioneer and shipping company that handled the $297,738 transaction.

Becnel bought the Israeli M50 Sherman tank last year at an auction of the world’s largest collection of vintage military vehicles, amassed in Portola Valley by millionaire Jacques Littlefield.

He was looking forward to driving his prize around near the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort on the Gulf of Mexico his father owns. The resort has 19 swimming pools, seven miles of sugar-white sand beaches, four championship golf courses, 15 world-class tennis courts, 19 swimming pools, a 98-slip marina, a fitness center and spa, but no tank.

“I just had to do it–YOLO!” he told a reporter for this newspaper at the July 2014 auction, employing the acronym for “You only live once.”

But weeks went by, and the tank did not arrive. Becnel’s assistants tried calling the shipping company, Dunkel Machinery Moving. The mover, the suit alleges, gave a “litany of excuses” about why it hadn’t arrived, ranging from the weather to a broken water pipe on the street to equipment problems.

Frustrated, Becnel flew out to the Bay Area and discovered that the tank, which had been in museum-quality condition, was still at the Portola Valley auction site, sitting outside with no cover and its hatches open, according to the lawsuit. A tow bar had been attached to the tank, indicating it had been used to tow other equipment after Becnel bought it, said his lawyer, Ara Jabagchourian. Its tracks were damaged and exterior was developing rust.

“To say the least, the tank was not in the condition it was in when Becnel bid on it,” the lawsuit alleges.

Becnel then did what any shopper would: He tried to return the item for a refund. When he didn’t get one, however, he sued.

The seller — the Collings Foundation — declined to comment on the lawsuit, and the auctioneer, Auctions America by RM in Indiana, was unavailable for comment. Littlefield bequeathed his 300-plus-piece collection to Collings. The foundation is a nonprofit that preserves and exhibits historical artifacts, particularly planes and other equipment from World War II.

It sold more than 100 pieces at the auction, including an 8-ton half-track personnel carrier, which landed a cool $1.2 million. A spokesman said Friday that the foundation wants to build a new museum for Littlefield’s core collection at its headquarters in Stow, Massachusetts, but the town has sued to block construction.

The tank is now being stored in Union City, said shipper Dave Dunkel of Dunkel Machinery Moving. He acknowledged that the tank was used to tow other pieces of the Littlefield collection in Portola Valley, but says so were the other tanks on the property. Becnel’s tank is now in tip-top shape, he said, ready to be shipped.

“We sat and detailed that tank for two days to look immaculate inside and out,” he said. “We had two guys Simple-Green everything they could get their hands on, and it’s been fully waxed.”

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com @tkaplanreport.

Tracey Kaplan is a reporter for the Bay Area News Group based at The Mercury News. She covers courts and has been in love with reporting for the past 30 years, including eight at the Los Angeles Times where she was part of a group that won a breaking news Pulitzer for coverage of the 1994 Northridge quake. Recently, she and two fellow reporters won first place for enterprise reporting from the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Talking to people -- including activists, public defenders, prosecutors, academics and inmates -- about the strengths and troubling weaknesses of the criminal justice system fascinates her, as does swimming laps as often as she can.

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